This blog is posted from a now retired 33 year CAW (now UNIFOR) member. The purpose of this blog is to allow others to see the perspective of the average worker, rather than the views of the Union Leadership If you have any concerns or comments on this blog, contact me at Email:paulsblues45@hotmail.com
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Sunday, March 4, 2012

Does The Media Want A real RoboCall Conspiracy Theory?

(Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff looks at candles while touring a market with local candidate Frank Valeriote on Saturday, April 30 in Guelph, Ont. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

Received an email from someone who prefers to remain anonymous, something that I have no problem doing. This person, like myself, has some doubt as to who was really behind the robocalls. Like me this person also will not vote Conservative in the next election if it's proven the party had a role.

But this individual had an angle about who might be responsible neither, nor anyone else has mentioned today. With the Liberals pointing the finger at Conservatives, with no proof I might add, perhaps Conservatives can point the finger back at Liberals, again with no proof. What can be provided however is a timeline that does seem to correlate to the purchase of the poutine cell phone and the date the calls are said to have started.

You be the judge: "Now with the new information on the throw away phone and the phone number got me thinking new questions. Where was Michael Ignatieff's campaign team on April 30 the day that the phone was activated? Surprise surprise he was in Guelph. Then came the question was he ever in Joliette where I take from the reports that the phone was purchased? Turns out on the 28th they were in Québec city and then traveled down to Montréal. Now I'm not sure if they stopped in Joliette but they passed right by."Now as far as I can tell, Ignatieff was in Guelph the morning of May 1st for a campaign stop. He was in the area the day before, making a campaign stop in Paris Ontario on the 30th. It's plausible Ignatieff's campaign team stayed overnight in Guelph, or would have been nearby when the phone got activated. As Conservative supporters also claimed to have received misleading phone calls, so much so the the riding association took action to ensure those supporting the party had the right polling booth info, some things seem to line up here.

Could be nothing. Probably is. Then again it hasn't stopped the opposition from finding the PM guilty already without a shred of evidence. So have at it media conspiracy fanatics.

I want to stress that point, because that's what any proof of wrong doing by the CPC or any identifiable group is going to hinge on.Otherwise this is at worst just a few trouble makers that had the same idea.And yes also stress, that part about any identifiable group.Of all the likely suspects, the occupy crowd would be stupid enough to do something this amature.Really, ask yourself, who would do something where they stood a 99% surety of being found out? Taking that into account, if we are to accept this was an organized or disorganized effort, how do we know that getting caught wasn't part of it?

We don't really know where Ignatieff was at that time.On April 24, when the conservative blogs were reporting on Ignatieff getting booed at a junior hockey playoff game, the Comical Ali's like Kady and OriginalEmily (perennial poster on Macleans comment boards) were busy contesting whether or not he was there.And that is a story they would have happily kept quiet if they could have. Too bad for them we were there, too, daring the LSM to ignore it.

Love it! They things that has bothered me about Guelph are questioned in your post but the red flag is certainly the CPoC candidate trying to get a communication strategy in place to UNDO incorrect information re polling stations. Stat!

That was my clarity and that is my trust compass.

There is nothing that could make me not vote for this PM because if there was a rogue volunteer that is one thing but I know this PM and there is NO WAY he would want anything but the book thrown at that person.

No doubts for me because this is so over the top now, it takes people like you Paul to do the great reporting and due diligence!The media are idiots!

What this article does is raise the possibility that a disgruntled Liberal made the calls, presumably due to being PO'ed for some reason at the Ignatieff campaign. Increasingly it looks like a rouge operator of whatever stripe.

There WAS confusion about polling stations. Because the advance poll was held - at least in part - over Easter weekend, some regular venues were not available. Our church hall was used, and I don't think that's usual. So if a location usually used for both advance and election day was unavailable for the advance poll, confusion could easily arise as to its availability on election day. People could have been phoning in good faith because of this problem.

CBC is in this up to their necks. Listening to Rex Murphy's cross country checkup was "HAIR RISING."17 callers all Harper Haters and venium spewed was enough to make a Canadian wonder if we were in japan or Germany during the war. Guests were BOB RAE & others all against the Govt. 3 emails read were good enough for a lawsuit. I wrote down all the names of the callers and took notes of all their slanderous comments.There was only 1 person who was for justice and he was Michael Bliss from the University of Toronto. who stated .."Prime Minister Stephen Harper is dealing with Iran and Israel right now." he said there is a sense of smell and he doesn't like the odor There is no example of people who didn't get to vote.Meanwhile Rex kept LEADING his callers into the direction he wanted to take them...Hate Harper. Callers seemed to be doobie occupy people. What a maddening CBC radio show for 2 solid hours of CBC smears with no proof. Rex was protecting his a$$ by saying assumed or whatever then continued on to totally run down insinuate corruption you name it. CBC REX MURPHY fighting for his CBC cash for his radio show in the most slimey, low down meathod. Using the taxpayers airline to spread the filth of CBC.

Anon @ 3:13. Not PO'ed for some reason at the Ignatieff campaign,but PO'ed at the CPC for defining the Ignatieff campaign. Remember they brought down the gov't thinking they were going to win, only to realize in the final days that they were going to end up in 3rd place.

Then consider how in Guelph *liberal* supporters were targeted. They even floated the idea that someone *cough* sold their list *cough* to the CPC.

I want a Country that elects people ( who btw make 6 figures) to WORK, not be freaks in a side show. Guys like this are NOT an Opposition,they are bratty, spoiled boors who love to look in the mirror and hear themselves talk. Probably have a setting to replay themselves over and over.

I want a Country that elects people ( who btw make 6 figures) to WORK, not be freaks in a side show. Guys like this are NOT an Opposition,they are bratty, spoiled boors who love to look in the mirror and hear themselves talk. Probably have a setting to replay themselves over and over.

"Remember they brought down the gov't thinking they were going to win, only to realize in the final days that they were going to end up in 3rd place."

I tried to make the point all along they knew they couldn't win.It was the Second Place Election.And Second Place meant First Among Equals at the Coalition Table.That's the information they must have gotten from people like Frank Graves.And that's why Ignatieff let himself be talked into bringing down the government.

Funny, the person who had the most to gain from Ignatieff's crash and burn was also the one who precipitated the election that produced the Harper majority.

Wendy Mesley caught lying again on CBC The National. She said Joe Volpe had calls saying they were Liberals. Well, not in this April 15 story by CBC below

Volpe office claims receiving call

Upping the intrigue are claims by one of Volpe's own campaign staff that the mystery number actually called their campaign headquarters.

Marsha Sands has sworn an affidavit before a lawyer to attest to what happened when she picked up the phone at their campaign headquarters on Monday. She said she was asked if she was going to vote for Volpe.

"I said 'Who is this?' I could hear voices in the background," she told CBC news in an interview.

When she pressed further, the caller said she was doing a survey.

"I said, 'Oh fine. What's the name of your company?'" recalled Sands, "and the girl, a female voice, said to me it was Dynamics Research.

"They didn't say anything and I kept repeating, 'Who is this?' And finally they said they were conservative."

Volpe acknowledges he has no proof who was on that telephone, or who was behind the calls, but he is now consulting lawyers and has called the Elections Canada candidate support line on what to do.Ontario Girl

You seem to ignore the basic logistics that is required to "robocall" numerous ridings. Sorry Contact Information Management System (CIMS) has security that limits access the type and breadth of the queries that can be preformed. Also the scaling factors for how they rate supporters and "hostile" voters also points to the party where these phone lists could have been generated.

If you are talking about a rogue worker doing this, then it is multiple rogue workers doing this in multiple campaign offices, working independently of each other. Ignoring political party or the "rogues" this is getting very thin to believe that there was no higher controlling members.

the thing thats always bothered me about the whole "Pierre Poutine" alias is this: It's almost like the name was chosen to attract attention. Its almost like whoever did it wanted to get caught. The fact that the name is a restaurant in Guelph, the choice of Seperatist Street and Joliette Quebec all seem a little too staged, like the punchline to a bad joke. Why would a Conservative, or anyone for that matter choose a name that would stand out in the media if they were trying to hide election fraud. Why not pick a random name from the phone book or something? It just seems wrong and staged and designed to stir up anger in quebec to boot...Would the story have the same ring to it if the phone was registered to, lets say, John Smith. Who or what has the most to gain by stirring up resentment of Quebecers towards the Federal Government?

So Zorpheus, you do realize ALL PARTIES have lists of both supporters and opponent supporters for every riding, correct?

Any idea the way the robocall companies operate? That being, who can trigger phone calls to be made?

Lastly, here in Ajax, the Conservative campaign headquarters fo Chris Alexander received numerous complaints from supporters irate that the party had called them several times on one day, including late at night. Problem is the party in fact HAD NOT made calls that day.

Elections Canada was notified in May 2011. The Conservative Party is playing this out brilliantly. While the opposition and media throw out new allegations every day, the CP is just letting EC and the RCMP do a proper investigation.

I'm more than willing to eat crow if it turns out the CP was involved. Matter of fact, if that's the finding, I'll do a posting here in your honor and eat crow.

But if it turns out it's not the CP, I hope you are willing to also man-up and eat crow. Yes?

Yes, all parties have lists of voters, but it is how those lists are differentiated that point to the where the robocall lists come from.

In a political CIMS database the politcal friendliness of a voter isn't broken down via party, but rather simply as a metric as to whether the voter is friendly or unfriendly. The CPC CIMC systems, the metric is measured between -15 (100% unlikely to vote for the CPC) too +15 (willing to polish Harper's floor).

From this you can pull people who are willing to vote for the CPC or who are not. If you pull from the CIMS database everyone in a riding who is -15 too 0, you will pull people who is vote Liberal, NDP, Green and other,... and possibly some CPC leaners.

Since the Robocalls largely targeted Liberal, NDP and Greens it describes the type of metric where the data originated from.

Serious Paul, if you where the RCMP and EC, where are you going to start looking first?

"Could be nothing. Probably is. Then again it hasn't stopped the opposition from finding the PM guilty already without a shred of evidence. So have at it media conspiracy fanatics."

By the way, here in Ajax the Conservative campaign headquarters received numerous complaints from upset supporters who said they had been called several times that day and were getting fed up. Problem was nobody in the campaign made phone calls that day.

So was this some nefarious plot by the Conservative Party, alienate our own voters to cover our tracks? That's like saying a serial killer murdered his own family to avoid being a suspect.

EC will get to the bottom of this, as the poutine phone will not be that hard to trace. Until then I'll hld off on making judgement, you should do the same.